My experience negotiating Scholly with USC Forum

[xJD2017x]

The money to pay athletes has to come from somewhere! haha

Come on man shabazz muhammad and tyler honeycutt went to UCLA. You know the two guys who got paid it came out recently.

[bravo1085]

The money to pay athletes has to come from somewhere! haha

Come on man shabazz muhammad and tyler honeycutt went to UCLA. You know the two guys who got paid it came out recently.

It isn't directed solely at USC. They've just been caught in the last few years. I imagine it's as wide spread as you would expect.

[xJD2017x]

The money to pay athletes has to come from somewhere! haha

Come on man shabazz muhammad and tyler honeycutt went to UCLA. You know the two guys who got paid it came out recently.

It isn't directed solely at USC. They've just been caught in the last few years. I imagine it's as wide spread as you would expect.

Obviously.

[jstep]

USC is massively overrated and over-ranked right now.

Comical. And to the person saying that the medians might drop again, I'd say if anything USC is proving to be giving out far more scholarships this year than previously was the case, in addition to free applications across the board; certainly this is as low as they'll fall (and Emory, GW, WUSTL are not in the same league).

It's also hard to worry when they launched a $150 million dollar fundraising initiative only a month ago:

http://news.usc.edu/58730/usc-gould-lau ... nitiative/

Especially when you consider that UCLA's 2011 $100 million campaign managed to get them to a hard 15.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/10 ... 13255.aspx

[xJD2017x]

USC is massively overrated and over-ranked right now.

Comical. And to the person saying that the medians might drop again, I'd say if anything USC is proving to be giving out far more scholarships this year than previously was the case, in addition to free applications across the board; certainly this is as low as they'll fall (and Emory, GW, WUSTL are not in the same league).

It's also hard to worry when they launched a $150 million dollar fundraising initiative only a month ago:

http://news.usc.edu/58730/usc-gould-lau ... nitiative/

Especially when you consider that UCLA's 2011 $100 million campaign managed to get them to a hard 15.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/10 ... 13255.aspx

He is somewhat right, USC had a rally bad year with its worst employment report ever and the drop in ranking(mainly due not hiring its own and USC does not rig the median like say emory does). California was flooded with too many JDs.. But when he said over-ranked he is wrong there. Who that is behind USC now should ranked hire over USC ?? No one. Emory has no business being ahead and neither does WUSTL although WUSTL is close.

[yafosho]

BOOM! I just heard back and they increased the offer from 30k/year to 40k/year (and this was after she had told me frankly in the convo that she couldn't give me a Full-Ride) A 15 minute phone call and some awkwardness just saved me 30 Grand.

Moral: ALWAYS negotiate scholarships even if you aren't competitive, you have literally nothing to lose. In terms of warning, try to only mention your most competitive schools that you are considering in opposition to that one even if said competitive school is offering a full ride. You will waste valuable phone time and credibility in their eyes by giving them lower ranked schools to poke at, come out shooting with your big guns but be careful bringing up employment statistics because representatives seem to be sensitive to that stuff unless unless your an extremely competitive candidate (if they offered you 30k you probably aren't extremely competitive, just competitive so keep that in mind). But also considering she gave me exactly what I asked, (she said she couldn't' do a full ride so I said it would have to be closer to 40k than 30k when she asked what I wanted) you can't really go wrong, your already admitted and they don't seem to hold grudges so come out gunning, no ones gonna speak up for you but you!

[Yea All Right]

Congratulations! So you're saying that precisely due to the tense phone call (not some additional attempt to negotiate afterward), you were able to get a raise in your scholarship? The interesting world of law school admissions.

[hellomellow]

Originally wrote this in response to someone asking me in the USC thread how my negotiation went. Thought it'd be helpful to some to post

So ya, I was offered 30k but the fact that USC is the 4th most expensive Law school in the country makes it difficult to choose over others. I sent them an email last week and I told them how I was accepted to Georgetown (with Scholly offer on the way), accepted to UW where I am in state and can go for VERY cheap, Seton Hall (offered me a full ride) and UC Irvine (offered me 40k/year) and about my financial status in that I won't have any assistance from parents. She said we could talk today.

I was surprised by how the phone call went, I expected it to be like me stating my case and her saying ok we'll consider it, all cordial like. But it turned out she was kind of aggressive in that she started going through schools I had mentioned in my original email and saying why they don't even compare to USC and kind of implying I didn't do my research if I'm going to bring up schools like them and it was obvious that she was skeptical that I was as she put it "just shopping around" instead of seriously considering USC. I was put off by this and a little offended considering she was approaching it as if I was simply someone trying to squeeze more money out of USC (even if it were so, not a point they have any right being offended by considering their sticker price) when in fact I legitimately want to know how much they value me. She started saying maybe I need to evaluate what things are most important to me in school in terms of cost, education, employment, network & living area if I'm valuing those offers when compared to USC's.

So once she started with this I stopped trying to be cordial and reminded her that I of course am shopping around because I'm about to make a more than $150k investment so if I'm wasting her time than please let me know but that I originally took it that "You" wanted "me", if this is the case I want to know how much so, but if its not and you don't value me enough to give me more than 30k thats fine I only want to know that. At this point she started bringing up again how USC is much better than some of the other schools I mentioned that were not as traditionally highly ranked but I could go cheaply.

This was frustrating because it seemed like she was trying to remind me of my relatively meager overall worth in terms of competitiveness and kind of questioning whether I really have standing to expect more aid, so I reminded her that I have been admitted to Georgetown who no matter what source you look at, is top tier in post graduation employment statistics, even UW is higher on average than USC in some regards. But USC on the other hand is constantly looking shady appearing towards the lower ends of rankings. (All this and the following I said in a much more cordial tone and professional tone than how i'm typing it and didn't drop any specific numbers or stats as to avoid sounding too bold and coming off as insulting towards USC's rankings). I said that USC was "in the 50s for LST employment score, 23% Underemployment score, only 72% employed 9 months after grad... I made it clear that I know you should take rankings with a grain of salt but I asked her frankly how USC justifies being the 4th highest in terms of cost but has a hard time breaking the top 30 in terms of post graduation employment statistics. Her only answer to this was that because I want to practice in Cali post graduation, that USC would be better. So i asked her why I should choose USC over UCLA in the event I was admitted to which she reminded me that I wasn't yet admitted to UCLA at which point I realized this was about as much I was gonna get out of this conversation.

Overall, I wish I would have been more prepared for the aggressive tone of the conversation. I know it sounds like I was upset with the interviewer but I'm not at all, in fact I appreciate her bluntness, the only regret I have is that I didn't hit her with more hard numbers to let her know I'm not an idiot which I'm not gonna lie, was kind of the tone I felt she started taking with me after our initial discussion. I should admit that I can be particularly easy to offend through undertones and whatnot so please don't take this as me saying USC is jerks or a bad investment, thats not the case, I was mainly just put off because I didn't expect it to go down like a bargain where she was going to tell me its not that USC is too expensive, its that I'm looking at it wrong. I assumed it was understood that the only reason I would write requesting further aid was because it was too expensive for me, telling me I need to reevaluate things seems kind of stupid considering only an idiot would go into a $150k investment without any evaluation and hopefully not too many of them make it by USC's application filter.

Hope this helps, I'll answer any questions too!

Man, I hate Trojans. You're better than that school anyway!

[zman]

Originally wrote this in response to someone asking me in the USC thread how my negotiation went. Thought it'd be helpful to some to post

So ya, I was offered 30k but the fact that USC is the 4th most expensive Law school in the country makes it difficult to choose over others. I sent them an email last week and I told them how I was accepted to Georgetown (with Scholly offer on the way), accepted to UW where I am in state and can go for VERY cheap, Seton Hall (offered me a full ride) and UC Irvine (offered me 40k/year) and about my financial status in that I won't have any assistance from parents. She said we could talk today.

I was surprised by how the phone call went, I expected it to be like me stating my case and her saying ok we'll consider it, all cordial like. But it turned out she was kind of aggressive in that she started going through schools I had mentioned in my original email and saying why they don't even compare to USC and kind of implying I didn't do my research if I'm going to bring up schools like them and it was obvious that she was skeptical that I was as she put it "just shopping around" instead of seriously considering USC. I was put off by this and a little offended considering she was approaching it as if I was simply someone trying to squeeze more money out of USC (even if it were so, not a point they have any right being offended by considering their sticker price) when in fact I legitimately want to know how much they value me. She started saying maybe I need to evaluate what things are most important to me in school in terms of cost, education, employment, network & living area if I'm valuing those offers when compared to USC's.

So once she started with this I stopped trying to be cordial and reminded her that I of course am shopping around because I'm about to make a more than $150k investment so if I'm wasting her time than please let me know but that I originally took it that "You" wanted "me", if this is the case I want to know how much so, but if its not and you don't value me enough to give me more than 30k thats fine I only want to know that. At this point she started bringing up again how USC is much better than some of the other schools I mentioned that were not as traditionally highly ranked but I could go cheaply.

This was frustrating because it seemed like she was trying to remind me of my relatively meager overall worth in terms of competitiveness and kind of questioning whether I really have standing to expect more aid, so I reminded her that I have been admitted to Georgetown who no matter what source you look at, is top tier in post graduation employment statistics, even UW is higher on average than USC in some regards. But USC on the other hand is constantly looking shady appearing towards the lower ends of rankings. (All this and the following I said in a much more cordial tone and professional tone than how i'm typing it and didn't drop any specific numbers or stats as to avoid sounding too bold and coming off as insulting towards USC's rankings). I said that USC was "in the 50s for LST employment score, 23% Underemployment score, only 72% employed 9 months after grad... I made it clear that I know you should take rankings with a grain of salt but I asked her frankly how USC justifies being the 4th highest in terms of cost but has a hard time breaking the top 30 in terms of post graduation employment statistics. Her only answer to this was that because I want to practice in Cali post graduation, that USC would be better. So i asked her why I should choose USC over UCLA in the event I was admitted to which she reminded me that I wasn't yet admitted to UCLA at which point I realized this was about as much I was gonna get out of this conversation.

Overall, I wish I would have been more prepared for the aggressive tone of the conversation. I know it sounds like I was upset with the interviewer but I'm not at all, in fact I appreciate her bluntness, the only regret I have is that I didn't hit her with more hard numbers to let her know I'm not an idiot which I'm not gonna lie, was kind of the tone I felt she started taking with me after our initial discussion. I should admit that I can be particularly easy to offend through undertones and whatnot so please don't take this as me saying USC is jerks or a bad investment, thats not the case, I was mainly just put off because I didn't expect it to go down like a bargain where she was going to tell me its not that USC is too expensive, its that I'm looking at it wrong. I assumed it was understood that the only reason I would write requesting further aid was because it was too expensive for me, telling me I need to reevaluate things seems kind of stupid considering only an idiot would go into a $150k investment without any evaluation and hopefully not too many of them make it by USC's application filter.

Hope this helps, I'll answer any questions too!

Man, I hate Trojans. You're better than that school anyway!

Not really.. he has a 3.1 not a 4.0

[Nonconsecutive]

Moral: ALWAYS negotiate scholarships even if you aren't competitive, you have literally nothing to lose.

Solid advice.

[xJD2017x]

so it was from 30 per year to 40 per year. I thought it was overall at first.

[NorCalLaw]

USC is massively overrated and over-ranked right now.

Comical. And to the person saying that the medians might drop again, I'd say if anything USC is proving to be giving out far more scholarships this year than previously was the case, in addition to free applications across the board; certainly this is as low as they'll fall (and Emory, GW, WUSTL are not in the same league).

It's also hard to worry when they launched a $150 million dollar fundraising initiative only a month ago:

http://news.usc.edu/58730/usc-gould-lau ... nitiative/

Especially when you consider that UCLA's 2011 $100 million campaign managed to get them to a hard 15.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/10 ... 13255.aspx

I only really care about employment numbers. By that metric, USC is beaten badly by most similarly-ranked schools. Cf. Notre Dame, presently ranked 6 slots below it. 70% real employment, same biglaw numbers, better clerkship numbers. USC is in a bad market, and it shows. They're giving out scholarships in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but you can't wish jobs into existence.

Thanks for linking to some USC promotional piece put out by USC's director of media relations, though.

[zman]

USC is massively overrated and over-ranked right now.

Comical. And to the person saying that the medians might drop again, I'd say if anything USC is proving to be giving out far more scholarships this year than previously was the case, in addition to free applications across the board; certainly this is as low as they'll fall (and Emory, GW, WUSTL are not in the same league).

It's also hard to worry when they launched a $150 million dollar fundraising initiative only a month ago:

http://news.usc.edu/58730/usc-gould-lau ... nitiative/

Especially when you consider that UCLA's 2011 $100 million campaign managed to get them to a hard 15.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/10 ... 13255.aspx

I only really care about employment numbers. By that metric, USC is beaten badly by most similarly-ranked schools. Cf. Notre Dame, presently ranked 6 slots below it. 70% real employment, same biglaw numbers, better clerkship numbers. USC is in a bad market, and it shows. They're giving out scholarships in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but you can't wish jobs into existence.

Thanks for linking to some USC promotional piece put out by USC's director of media relations, though.

Well USC had a bad year by its standards but LST doesn't count the high paying jobs USC grads working in the high tech industry for example which pay a lot more than small law firms but do NOT count on LST. No one will go to Notre Dame over USC, so why bring them up that's not even a peer school. They are giving out scholarships to get high GPA and LSAT, but they have about 4000 apps, that's well over 2500 ND will get.. You can't wish jobs into existance but they won't need to with about one third fewer grads overall..

[xJD2017x]

USC is massively overrated and over-ranked right now.

Comical. And to the person saying that the medians might drop again, I'd say if anything USC is proving to be giving out far more scholarships this year than previously was the case, in addition to free applications across the board; certainly this is as low as they'll fall (and Emory, GW, WUSTL are not in the same league).

It's also hard to worry when they launched a $150 million dollar fundraising initiative only a month ago:

http://news.usc.edu/58730/usc-gould-lau ... nitiative/

Especially when you consider that UCLA's 2011 $100 million campaign managed to get them to a hard 15.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/10 ... 13255.aspx

I only really care about employment numbers. By that metric, USC is beaten badly by most similarly-ranked schools. Cf. Notre Dame, presently ranked 6 slots below it. 70% real employment, same biglaw numbers, better clerkship numbers. USC is in a bad market, and it shows. They're giving out scholarships in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but you can't wish jobs into existence.

Thanks for linking to some USC promotional piece put out by USC's director of media relations, though.

Well since you go to UC hastings you would know about a bad market better than anyone in California. That is the ultimate diploma mill.

[NorCalLaw]

USC is massively overrated and over-ranked right now.

Comical. And to the person saying that the medians might drop again, I'd say if anything USC is proving to be giving out far more scholarships this year than previously was the case, in addition to free applications across the board; certainly this is as low as they'll fall (and Emory, GW, WUSTL are not in the same league).

It's also hard to worry when they launched a $150 million dollar fundraising initiative only a month ago:

http://news.usc.edu/58730/usc-gould-lau ... nitiative/

Especially when you consider that UCLA's 2011 $100 million campaign managed to get them to a hard 15.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/10 ... 13255.aspx

I only really care about employment numbers. By that metric, USC is beaten badly by most similarly-ranked schools. Cf. Notre Dame, presently ranked 6 slots below it. 70% real employment, same biglaw numbers, better clerkship numbers. USC is in a bad market, and it shows. They're giving out scholarships in an attempt to stop the bleeding, but you can't wish jobs into existence.

Thanks for linking to some USC promotional piece put out by USC's director of media relations, though.

Well since you go to UC hastings you would know about a bad market better than anyone in California. That is the ultimate diploma mill.

Absolutely true, which is why I joined this board with the express intent of convincing people not to attend UCH. So far I've notched a couple via PM, but the boards apparently limit what you can actually post in each section.

It still upsets me to see people defending what are essentially T1 trap schools in this market. Tons of USC law grads are extremely well-connected, so it's not a good assumption to think your results will be typical of these folks from gilded families.

LST doesn't count the high paying jobs USC grads working in the high tech industry for example which pay a lot more than small law firms but do NOT count on LST. No one will go to Notre Dame over USC, so why bring them up that's not even a peer school.

Citation needed on the tech industry jobs, also MS degree needed most likely. I brought up ND because they're ranked below USC despite having clearly superior numbers as part of my point that USC is overranked relative to jobs figures, no other comparison was implicated.

[cron1834]

1) No one ITT really cares about "rankings"

2) ND has never beaten USC in large firm scores in recent years, which is what a plurality of TLS seems to care about

3) USC beat ND in overall employment in CO'11 and CO'12 - you're clearly overreacting to a 1-year dip. These things need to be averaged over time. This is especially true with USC radically reducing 1L numbers since fall '10

With logical reasoning skills like this, no wonder you went to HasTTTings. Stop shitting on a useful thread.

[PrideandGlory1776]

Spazz out in a phone interview and still get a 30k scholly bump shortly thereafter? Is this real life?

[NorCalLaw]

1) No one ITT really cares about "rankings"

2) ND has never beaten USC in large firm scores in recent years, which is what a plurality of TLS seems to care about

3) USC beat ND in overall employment in CO'11 and CO'12 - you're clearly overreacting to a 1-year dip. These things need to be averaged over time. This is especially true with USC radically reducing 1L numbers since fall '10

With logical reasoning skills like this, no wonder you went to HasTTTings. Stop shitting on a useful thread.

1) I only referenced rankings in response to other people talking about them and related vague "prestige" and "network" matters that just cloud the reality of actual outcomes.

2) I guess the other 70% of the cohort's outcomes just don't matter then? Biglaw is a relative longshot at all of these schools.

3) Trends and fluctuations both matter.

The only people getting upset about this are people attending or planning to attend USC, it seems. No reason to hurl insults. Wish you the best at USC.

[zman]

1) No one ITT really cares about "rankings"

2) ND has never beaten USC in large firm scores in recent years, which is what a plurality of TLS seems to care about

3) USC beat ND in overall employment in CO'11 and CO'12 - you're clearly overreacting to a 1-year dip. These things need to be averaged over time. This is especially true with USC radically reducing 1L numbers since fall '10

With logical reasoning skills like this, no wonder you went to HasTTTings. Stop shitting on a useful thread.

1) I only referenced rankings in response to other people talking about them and related vague "prestige" and "network" matters that just cloud the reality of actual outcomes.

2) I guess the other 70% of the cohort's outcomes just don't matter then? Biglaw is a relative longshot at all of these schools.

3) Trends and fluctuations both matter.

The only people getting upset about this are people attending or planning to attend USC, it seems. No reason to hurl insults. Wish you the best at USC.

"Trends and fluctuations both matter." Yes but USC is ahead of Notre dame and other schools like WUSTL,GW and so in any serious measure. There is no fluctuation there.. You said employment is what counts but LST doesn't count the high paying JD-preffered(usually in the high tech industry in california) jobs for USC over the low paying school funded and 2-10 attourney jobs that do count which is why those schools beat USC on LST.

[srslyp]

1) I only referenced rankings in response to other people talking about them and related vague "prestige" and "network" matters that just cloud the reality of actual outcomes.

2) I guess the other 70% of the cohort's outcomes just don't matter then? Biglaw is a relative longshot at all of these schools.

3) Trends and fluctuations both matter.

The only people getting upset about this are people attending or planning to attend USC, it seems. No reason to hurl insults. Wish you the best at USC.

USC's very poor employment statistics (for one year mind you) come from a class size of 238. At Law Day, they stated that the incoming class would be b/w 150-160. A difference in ~80 students in an already small school is pretty big. UCLA has also reduced its class size since CO '13. You will have >20% fewer new JDs coming from those two schools in 2017 relative to 2013.

[cron1834]

1) No one ITT really cares about "rankings"

2) ND has never beaten USC in large firm scores in recent years, which is what a plurality of TLS seems to care about

3) USC beat ND in overall employment in CO'11 and CO'12 - you're clearly overreacting to a 1-year dip. These things need to be averaged over time. This is especially true with USC radically reducing 1L numbers since fall '10

With logical reasoning skills like this, no wonder you went to HasTTTings. Stop shitting on a useful thread.

1) I only referenced rankings in response to other people talking about them and related vague "prestige" and "network" matters that just cloud the reality of actual outcomes.

2) I guess the other 70% of the cohort's outcomes just don't matter then? Biglaw is a relative longshot at all of these schools.

3) Trends and fluctuations both matter.

The only people getting upset about this are people attending or planning to attend USC, it seems. No reason to hurl insults. Wish you the best at USC.

Your point was that USC does considerably worse than schools ranked below. That was shown to be wrong. Come on, dude.

ETA - I'm probably not going there. I'm just speaking to the data objectively.